A3 Refereed book chapter or chapter in a compilation book
Excluding Power from a Narrative: Sexual Harassment in a Criminal Law Reform
Authors: Johanna Niemi
Editors: Ulrika Andersson, Monika Edgren, Lena Karlsson, Gabriella Nilsson
Publishing place: Cham
Publication year: 2019
Book title : Rape Narratives in Motion
Series title: Palgrave Studies in Crime, Media and Culture
First page : 17
Last page: 41
Number of pages: 15
ISBN: 978-3-030-13851-6
eISBN: 978-3-030-13852-3
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13852-3_2
In discourses on sexual harassment abuse of power is usually present. Often the perpetrators are in positions of power and, if not, they benefit from a culture that protects the practices against women and others in less powerful positions. However, the power relations are not always acknowledged. This chapter presents a law reform to criminalize sexual harassment that was presented and handled in the Finnish Parliament without discussion on the power relations in harassment. The chapter discusses the consequences of the dismissal of the power dimension in the formulation of the new law, which is limited to touching, and in the implementation of the new law, in which more serious sexual violations are processed as sexual harassment.